Mcallen Daily Monitor

DEPUTY NAMED MURDER PLOT CONSPIRATOR

Kingfish's Army Will Maintain Provost Marshal Office In Department.

BATON ROUGE, La., Jan. 28. (AP) State national guardsmen today took charge of the east Baton Rouge sheriff's office.

Although the militiamen took physical possession of the sheriff's department, Pettit was told by the soldiers that he could conduct the office routine as usual.

The guardsmen, however, demanded complete records and names of everyone he might arrest, place in jail, or release from jail.

The East Baton Rouge sheriff's office was named by Senator Long Saturday in the senator's "court inquiry" in what he said was a plot to "murder" him.

Long tried to show by testimony of Sidney Songy, former prohibition informer, that Fred C. Parker, who has been one of Pettit's deputies, was a member of the "murder conspiracy" he said he hatched against him.

State Rules Appointments

Long had an act passed at the December special session prohibiting Pettit from naming any deputies without state approval.

It was stated that provost-marshals office of military police headquarters, would be maintained by the militia in the sheriff's department.

Plans Are Guarded

BATON ROUGE, La., Jan. 28-(AP)-The storm center of the tense hostility between Huey P. Long's armed forces and shotgun bearing citizens enraged at the senator's dictatorship veered northward today toward the fiery Feliciana Parishes where tight-lipped anti-Long countrymen closely guarded their plans.

While reinforced troops of National guardsmen maintained strict martial law in the city of Baton Rouge, throwing a military ring of steel around the capital's state buildings, rumblings of resentment reverberated in the parishes of West Feliciana and East Feliciana, hot-beds of anti-Long sentiment.

Fred C. Wilcox, West Feliciana's sheriff named by Senator Long in connection with what the dominating master of Louisiana's government said was a plot to "murder" him, predicted immediately extension of martial law to his parish and said no one could tell what might happen.

In the two Felicianas, public officials ranked as anti-Long leaders were difficult to locate, and private citizens in the towns of St. Francisville and Clinton, the parish seats respectively of West and East Feliciana, kept grim silence about the situation.

Wilcox Leaves Hurriedly

In St. Francisville, Wilcox after his prophecy of immediate martial law, entered an automobile and sped away. followed by another machine occupied by several men of solemn expression.

In Clinton, where the town's lights went out and scores of armed men, members of the local "home guard" formed in opposition to Long's state control, paced the streets after martial law was proclaimed in Baton Rouge, citizens had nothing to say, except to give the formal reply of "I don't know" to all questions.

Although extension of martial law from the parish of East Baton Rouge and the city of Baton Rouge to the Feliciana was expected, Adjutant General Raymond H. Fleming of the National Guard branded the supposition as "silly."

Meanwhile. the militia and state police, with Long back in Washington. far from the strife scene where he claimed his life was threatened, rested on their arms and waited for anti-Long citizens to make the next move.

Troops at Baton Rouge
The militia was encamped in Baton Rouge apparently for an indefinite stay. The guardsmen were mobilized Saturday just before Senator Long opened a court "inquiry" into what he said was a plot of several public officials to have him waylaid and "murdered" on the New Orleans-Baton Rouge highway.

Soon after the "inquiry" was adjourned when Long said he couldn't find his "witnesses" whom he also named as conspirators, a hundred citizens assembled at the East Baton Rouge airport armed with shotguns, rifles and pistols.

They were arrested or dispersed by guardsmen and one of their number shot and seriously wounded in a manner not definitely determined. He was given a chance to recover.

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